Elie Wiesel blasts Romney for staying mum on Mormon conversions of Jews |
Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Posthumous baptisms were performed in Mormon churches in Utah, Arizona and Idaho, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center • Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in its written apology, suggests that the action was the work of one member whom they said has since been disciplined.
Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel.
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Photo credit: AP | |||||
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Elie Wiesel on Wednesday blasted U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for staying mum about a the posthumous baptisms by its members of the parents of famed Nazi hunter and Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal, a practice for which the Mormon Church issued an apology on Tuesday.
The posthumous baptisms were performed in Mormon churches in Utah, Arizona and Idaho, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization named after the man who hunted down more than 1,000 Nazi war criminals including Adolf Eichmann in the years following the Holocaust.
In a televised interview with MSNBC, Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor who went on to become a prolific author and Nobel laureate, said of Romney, “How come that he hasn’t spoken up after all? It’s not, I’m sure he’s not involved in that. But nevertheless, the moment he heard about this, he should have spoken up, because he is running for the presidency of the United States, which means it’s too serious of an issue for him not to speak up,” he added.
Wiesel said he was disgusted when he heard of the conversions, saying, “I’m a Jew. I was born a Jew and I live as Jew ... That they should do it to me? Then of course they must have done it to my parents, who were killed in Auschwitz ... It’s unforgivable.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in its written apology, suggested that the action was the work of one member whom they said has since been disciplined.
“We sincerely regret that the actions of an individual member of the church led to the inappropriate submission of these names,” church spokesman Michael Purdy said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters. “The policy of the church is that members can request these baptisms only for their own ancestors. Proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims are strictly prohibited.”
Wiesenthal’s mother Rosa died at the Belzec concentration camp in Poland in 1942. His father, Asher Wiesenthal, died during the First World War.
The apology, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper of Simon Wiesenthal Center, will not fix things.
“A heartfelt apology is certainly appropriate, but it rings hollow if it keeps happening again and again,” Cooper told Reuters.
Cooper has participated in high-level meetings between Jews and Mormon officials since 1995 in an effort to halt such posthumous baptisms.
Simon Wiesenthal died of natural causes in 1995. Cooper, who knew Wiesenthal for 30 years, said he would have been deeply hurt by the actions that the Mormon Church seems unable to control.
“He [Wiesenthal] revered his mother. She raised him. He was unsuccessful in saving her during the Second World War,” Cooper said. “If Simon Wiesenthal was alive today, he would be in deep pain.”
Cooper called the actions “unacceptable,” saying that people who lost everyone and everything and had been murdered for being Jewish during the Holocaust should not have their souls hijacked by another religion.
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=3142
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